About my Zest for Food

Those closest to me know that I love to cook. I have telling folks for the longest, I want to start a food blog someday. Someday has finally arrived. I didn't deliberately set out to start my food blog today. It just so happened to be today. This day has a special meaning for me. My father passed away 13 years ago, April 9, 1997

My love of food goes all the way back to my father's cooking. Without exaggerating, he was the best cook in the family, better than my mother, than my maternal grandmother, than my paternal grand mother; he left them in the dust by hundreds of miles.

He took so much pride in the seasonings he created, offering a sniff to anyone willing to give it a smell. Though who sniffed agreed, the aroma of the spices was delicious. No one has been able to replicate the seasonings or flavors he created with food.

When we were called to the kitchen it was usually to make one of two things, a large batch of sofrito or a large batch of beans. If it were beans, it would be made in a ginormous container, capable of holding 3-4 gallons worth of beans; I kid you not. After it was cooked, it was packaged into improvised tupperware--old containers of butter.

The kitchen wasn't a pleasant place to be. There was lots of chopping and mixing. It was just hot in the kitchen also. I didn't appreciate being called into the kitchen for what I thought was a cooking chore. It was a process that seemed to take over an hour; it seemed so long, so complicated, and all I could think about while doing it was getting away to have fun. I was about 12 or 13 at the time. My Honduran step-sister endured these cooking chores with me. Ahh that was such a long time ago...

Fast-forward 13 years, no one has recreated those delicious flavors my father created in his kitchen. My grand-parents and mother surely were not the source of his culinary prowness, without a shadow of a doubt I can say; he was completely self-taught, and I do regret not writing his recipes. I hope one day my own experiments in Puerto Rican cuisine will push me towards what my father created...

Zest for Food. Cooking is one of those things that excites, invigorates, and energies me. Learning about ingredients, observing cooking techniques, obtaining kitchen gadgets, and just making new recipes are things that energize my creative energy. It is a play off of "lust for life." This ever-popular expression does summarize

What do I want to accomplish with my blog? I want to share the things I eat. I want to share the things I cook. And along the way I want to share random fun facts related to food.